Sunday, April 25, 2010
How the West Looked and Sounded
Robert Altman utilized disntinctive techniques of cinematography and sound in McCabe & Mrs. Miller. He used natural light during the day and subdued lighting to capture the look of gaslight during the night. He used sound that often captured all the noise in the room without differentiated individual voices. Thus much of the film looks dark and dingy and sounds noisy and unfocused. Does the lighting and sound add to the experience of watching the film -- or does it detract? Does it provide a sense of life in the West at the turn of the twentieth century? Or does it distract from the story?
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I particularly like the cinematography used in the film because I thought that it added character to the set. It gives the audience a better idea of the western feel. It makes the set seem more realistic as they would not have had more light than that given by the lamps, candles, and natural light. I think that the muffling of the voices made it somewhat hard to understand things so it was a little distracting in that sense. Even though the lines that were muffled were not as important as those you could hear clearly, they were sometimes funny lines that made the scene more enjoyable for the viewers. I think that the lighting took you more deeply into the scenes as if you were almost there. The dingyness of the set as well as the costumes fit very well with the western theme. I think that McCabe’s scruffiness was played very well as it seemed natural for the time. Overall I think that the use of natural lighting and western looking costumes was important to the portrayal of the western theme, but the sound detracted from that. I think the voices could have still ben muffled as long as those lines were given subtitles. That way the audience could still catch the subtle jokes and get a sense of where the people actually stood in relation to the main character.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed how the sound and lighting was done. It was as if we were there as an audience. As Dani said, while they are inside at night all they have is candles. In reality, it was dark in there and the film really captured that. When you are with a crowd of people, especially in a bar, everything will not be clear. You will only hear a select few of the voices that are close to you, which also adds to the sense of reality. As long as the important is hear, then it is fine. It is similar to His Girl Friday, when the characters talk over each other we miss some pointless conversation but pick up the important stuff. It gives the audience good insight on what it was like in the West back then. It was usually dark inside at night and only natural lighting during the day, which is what the director accomplished.
ReplyDeleteI definitely enjoyed the way the lighting and sound were, because to me these things helped to make the film much more natural and plausible. Lighting is an important component of the way a film "feels", and McCabe and Mrs. Miller definitley would have not felt like it was set out West if there had been fluorescent lighting and clearly enunciated dialogue.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem with the mumbled dialogue ss that sometimes this feature of the film impedes the audience's ability to understand what is going on. However, using subtitles alleviates this problem easily.
I think that making the film look believable in regards to the time period is a very imporant consideration. Thus, having dim lighting was an essential part of the setting, since there obviously would have been no way during that era to light a room as brightly as we light rooms today.
I think when answering this question, you have to have some context. During that time, alot of westerns came out that sort of romanticized the frontier lifestyle. In them, you would have John Wayne ride into town as the rogue, but surprisingly well dressed and groomed, cowboy who would then proceed to drive out the robbers/Indians/whatever. In many ways I think McCabe and Mrs. Miller was a reaction to that romanticized view. So instead of showing plainly unrealistic conditions, Altman chooses to emphasize how the West really was. And part of that process was showing the dingy reality of living conditions and downplaying clear dialogue. Both of those things make it harder to follow the film, but when we're talking about an entire movie focused on breaking Hollywood conventions on westerns, I think it helps add to the believability of the entire film.
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoyed the lightening of this movie. It really captures a more authentic picture of the West, to reiterate what others have said. THe dark lighting on the hairy bedraggled men really exaggerates the dirty life they were living. Thus the lighting makes certain plot points seem more valid. If the film were shot with florescent light in addition to the clean John Wayne types, the viewers take on the brothels requirements for patronage. Had the men been "properly" lighted, a lot of the gritty details that made the bathing requirement seem so necessary would be lost and so would a huge point of the movie.
ReplyDeleteWhile the lighting added to the film, the audio seemed to detract from the overall effect. The audio techniques made the dialogue sound how it would in crowded areas in real life. This was a movie though and if Im watching it, I wanna hear whats going on without relying on the subtitles.